WHAT HAPPENED TO POLITICAL PLATFORMS IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?

The republican National Convention is over. There's not much to contrast it with previous party nominating conventions. It should have been an embarrassment to any thinking person, but thinking persons have been primaried from them since about the 1990s. Which explains how Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan were featured entertainment.

I don't know when it happened, but at some time in the last decade or two, party platforms have slipped away from the Republican presidential nominating conventions. They are no longer the kind of events that we saw in the great Frank Capra movies of the 1940's. Maybe they never were. I can remember as a boy of about 6, sitting on grandpa's lap watching the 1956 Republican convention on their brand new Admiral television.. The states would be called by the moderator and as each state was called, a speaker, male of course, would stand and speak in their best stentorian voice, introducing the great qualities of their states. They would then put into nomination the candidate who attained the most votes in that states primary. As the Convention reached its close, planks would be read into the minutes and voted on. From those successful planks would be built the platform that the Presidential candidate would run on. Democracy in action. The 2024 RNC left that out of its convention. There was no need for the stentorian speeches by state officials. Nikki Haley had already given her delegates to the guy she said she could never support. That act of supplication gained her a speaking spot at the Convention. Bobby Kennedy Jr. had sold out for a sinecure position in the Trump administration. There were no other possible candidates. Donald Trump had turned the RNC into yet another part of Trump Inc. and nobody complained. He is even using RNC campaign funds to pay his legal bills, and again, no one has complained. The Republican platform had been written by faceless individuals in a non-descript room at the Heritage Foundation. We can be sure it wasn't voted on. We may also surmise that if it was a smoke-filled room, that the smoke was from expensive cigars which were accompanied by copious amounts of Trump Cabernet Sauvignon. You can dip the butt in the Cabernet and it wont ruin the already awful wine. This is the end of what was once a great political party. Lincoln would be crushed. His Democratic opponent, Stephan Douglas would have rejoiced. Here I may be indulging in a bit of hyperbole. Or not.

Republicans have gotten away from public speaking. They remind you of a prison Toastmasters club. Reagan could be personable, though that may be attributed to his acting chops. Gerry Ford had his rhetorical moments, Nixon curdled the coffee cream that was fresh and served in a small stainless steel pitcher at the time. Eisenhower may have been the best Republican speaker as president. Douglas MacArthur was a good speaker, but Republicans in those days wished he would, "just fade away".

Probably from Nixon's administration on, we've seen the proliferation of right wing advocacy groups. At first they may not have been the corporate lobby-in-hiding. As they gained influence, they stopped advising and began demanding. Those think-tanks and pressure groups offered pre-digested policies, and incentives for falling in line. Any show of independent thinking and they won't back your primary; your political career will be aborted. One of those groups, ALEC, goes around to states with the Republican tri-fecta: Governor and both houses of the legislature in Republican control. They throw lavishly catered meetings where pre-digested bills are passed out to be jammed through the legislature and signed into law. Those politicians are promoted through the Republican farm team until they, in the words of the Peter Principle, reach their highest level of incompetence. Here I would mention some names, but what Republican shows any level of competence? The hapless Democrats in those states watch those bills go through with barely a speech to promote it. Like popcorn through a goose. The final product bears a striking resemblance to the final product of that popcorn's journey.

Republican conventions, lately, are run in the same brusque manner. This year the Heritage society presented project 2025 without examination. There was some discussion among the opposition party, but Republicans have gotten away from two-party politics. Heritage Foundation was there handing out the talking points. Anyone who might have been a little queasy kept it to themselves. Who am I kidding! We are talking about Republicans. They are by now as well-trained as Pavlov's dogs.

Too late were the Republicans inclined to ask if they had gone too far with this 900 page tome. The word spread through the media, 90% of which is controlled by six corporations. Even some of them were inclined to ask if this was the heritage Heritage wanted to live with. When you are punished for independent thought, people within that bubble find their critical thinking as flaccid as the wattles in Donald Trump's neck. Even worse, Republicans don't like to to allow Democrats to speak on those issues that are important to right wing think tanks. There is no need to inspire the electorate. They only need to use lies and insults about their Democratic opponents. This is the Republican of today. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CANNABIS-INFUSED SODA, AND OTHER BLESSINGS.

     I started smoking pot in about my 18th year. It was not love at first sight, more of an occasional dalliance. Alcohol had place of honor for a while. At some point it became clear to me that the famous slippery slope to heroin abuse was a rightwing trope. People did not use the word trope at that time, there were more colorful descriptions, bullshit would be one. Since that time, so long ago, we have seen changes in alcohol, and the public houses you can go, "where everybody knows your name". Beer is now, more often made locally, or regionally. Taverns are now pubs, Stewart sandwiches and pickled hard-boiled eggs, have been replaced by bistro food or other edible delights. Wine is much better, and produced in American Viticultural Areas that are not dominated by California. Even distilled spirits are being produced by local craft distilleries.       More recently Marijuana has, in smarter states, been legalized, usually regulated by the same people who regulate fermented
Read more

PINKY: IN MEMORIAM

    On 2:53 AM, March 24, 2022, Pinky Conklin was relieved of the chronic pain that had bedeviled her most of her life. She was 79 years old. I was only with her a few short years, 3 of them where she was reasonably ambulatory, but we had some fun together. When we started our relationship she was living with one of her sons and his wife in Prineville, Oregon. She was 8 blocks from a senior center, but had no public transport to get her there and she walked unstably with a cane. I thought she could get better treatment in Portland, she was trying to get hip replacement, but I lived on my little 27' Bayliner cruiser. I was living the dream I had held in my mind for some four decades. I did not think she could handle the rigors of marina life, but my purchase of the boat, and the necessary costs of maintaining a boat were taxing my resources.       For a while she was able to live with a relative in Tigard. We joined the Tigard Senior Center and she had people to talk with outside of
Read more

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE.

     Recently I was given a task by Professor Wen at Willamette University . She is conducting a study on generations with her class. Since I am of an older generation,  i represent my demographic. My task was to make a presentation of my writing to a small group of students from the class she is teaching. I knew immediately what I would present to her Generations group.      Some years ago in my mid 20's I hitch-hiked to Southern California. On a typical sunny California day I found myself sitting in the well-heeled comfort of Marina Del Rey.  An old man struck up a conversation with me. He was then, around my age now.     He was clearly Jewish, that distinctive nose and the Eastern European accent. He told me a story of escaping Holland in a sailboat regatta of these odd little sabot sailboats. I said little except to draw him out when the story began to lag. He used a phrase when referring to how people dealt with the insult of being occupied by a hostile nation, "small dis
Read more